


Residual Light

by Analinea



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Off Screen Violence, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: Derek takes care of Stiles after a fight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://paquim.tumblr.com/post/130158155121).

Derek quietly returns from the kitchen, carrying a large bowl filled with hot water in one hand, bandages loosely held in the other. He stops just before stepping in the living room, looks silently at the still form of the teen sitting in front of the gigantic window of the loft.

Stiles has his back to him, but his empty eyes, torn knuckles and face covered in droplets of blood like a morbid imitation of his beauty marks are engraved in Derek's mind. It was not his blood, not that Stiles had been capable of saying that much himself.

The human has his head tilted and raised a little, like he's gazing at the night sky. Derek finally resumes his approach and sets the aluminum bowl on the table behind Stiles with enough noise to let him know he's back in the room. The water sloshes with a soft sound that must be inaudible to non-enhanced hearing, and the light from the moon reflects on the ceiling in a calming pattern.

Derek sits next to Stiles, watches his profile for a few seconds, trying to think of something to say that would make this better. Nothing comes to mind. This is what shock looks like, is his only thought. He picks up the bowl again, puts it on his lap and gently wraps his fingers around Stiles' left wrist.

The cuts are oozing blood, the skin and the bones must hurt. Derek, not for the first time, stares at it in fascination. Human healing, already at work but invisibly, and so so slowly. He remembers Mexico, the way it had hurt so differently than all the other injuries he ever got.

The pain _stayed_ with him then, lingered until his whole body ached. Faded briefly before flaring back. Nothing like the flash pain before werewolf healing took over. The closest he ever came to was maybe Kali driving a pipe through him. Kate burning down his family.

Derek shakes these thoughts out, delicately submerges Stiles' hand in the water. It doesn't even incites a flinch. It's like there's no one inside this body, still like a statue and as lifeless. It creeps Derek out, even if he would never admit it out loud.

But maybe Stiles needs to process what happened. That he has that kind of violence in him, the kind that made it difficult for Derek's werewolf strength to pull him back from the man that had threatened everything they love. He must have known, before, what he was capable of, but in a distant, hypothetical way. The confirmation is another matter entirely.

The wolf cleans up the first hand, still seeing the hunter on the ground  _whimpering_ , wraps it efficiently -Melissa taught him how-, still hearing the hits and the screams of rage, then moves on to the right hand. 

Stiles breathing hitches at the end of it, like he's finally getting back to the present. He barely lets Derek finish the second bandage before he gets up and walks closer to the window, raising a hand to lightly touch the glass with the tip of his fingers.

Derek follows Stiles with his eyes, then puts everything haphazardly on the table before joining him at the window. He reaches for the human's shoulder, refuses the memory of the night of Boyd's death to come to the front of his mind, and tugs weakly; just enough to let Stiles know that he can turn to face him if he wants to, without forcing him.

Stiles does, even if his eyes stay stubbornly set on the sky. Derek raises his hand until he feels soft hair between his fingers, and closes the distance between them until he feels a warm body against his. He embraces Stiles carefully, so scared because he saw the steel in the teen's soul but it doesn't change how crushable he feels between his arms. It doesn't change how easily broken he could be, bones that snap and tear skin apart from the inside.

The hand that was touching the window is now hovering a few inches from the glass, fingers reaching for something so far away Derek's not sure his unfocused eyes can see it.

Stiles finally breaks the silence with his cracked voice, “You know how some stars are already dead by the time their light reaches us?”. Derek feels the back of his shirt being gripped by Stiles' other hand.

“Sometimes I think that I'm only the residual light of a boy who's been dead for years,” he whispers in an even tone. It makes Derek's heart clench painfully, both the words and how they hang in the air, emotionless.

Stiles closes his fist for a second, opens it again and now there's a visible tremor in his fingers. He mirrors Derek and rakes them through the wolf's hair at the back of his head, like he's trying to comfort him.  _He probably is_ , Derek thinks. 

“I could've killed that man, you know, if you hadn't stop me. I would've done it.”

Derek feels a tear run down his face, he doesn't really understand where it comes from. He's doing all he can to not feel this, whatever this is. It hurts like a human wound, and he's trying to keep still enough to be spared by the pain. It runs through his veins like hundreds of tiny shards of glass.

“Of course you know,” Stiles murmurs before turning his head away from the unforgiving stars to hide his own tears in Derek's neck. They can't tell if only one or the both of them are shaking, so they pretend it's the ground that does. That way, they can believe it's the world that's falling apart, not them.

Derek thinks of these old buildings in the small European villages he visited with his sister, arches of stone between houses to keep them from tilting too much and crumble. He thinks that they can be like that, the both of them, leaning against each other until they're strong enough to stand on their own again.

And then, maybe, they'll build something new together. Something that will be _theirs_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think! I'll maybe write a fluffy sequel, because at some point I'll have to get karma points back, you know...  
> Also, here's my [tumblr](http://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com), if you want to nicely yell at me or something


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles wakes up disoriented. The sun is not where it's supposed to be, shines somewhere over his head instead of at his left. He burrows himself deeper under the covers, inhales deeply and lets the heaviness of his limbs pull him back under for a few more minutes.

Something moves next to him, and if he doesn't jump it makes his heart beat slightly faster. He slides his head a little higher on the pillow -not his, which makes it surprising that he fell asleep in the first place- and there. In front of him, face bathed in the soft light of the early hours of the day, Derek sleeps. It's one of the most beautiful things Stiles has ever seen.

It's like seeing him for the first time. The softness of his features is not something Stiles witnessed before. Sharp edge and raw emotions, anger, betrayal, concealed hurt are shown in waking hours. Sometimes the beginning of a smile, a quiet laugh. Nothing like this.

Stiles smiles tenderly, gets his bandaged hand out from under the covers to silently trace the contours of Derek in the air. He burns to touch, but he doesn't. Not like this, not when the man's eyes are closed.

The hand finds its way back in the warmth of their cocoon, eyes close again. The images of the night before flash in his mind, but everything from the moment he put foot in the loft is distant and fuzzy. He can't remember what he said, only gets the faint memory of looking up at the stars.

He loved star gazing once, collected books on nebulas, to the point where his mom brought him a telescope. He still has it. Doesn't take a close look at he sky like he did when he was younger and more innocent and thought that things were as infinite and eternal as the universe.

The air moves in front of his face and the sheets rustle with movements that are not his own, so he opens his eyes again to see Derek studying him with an unreadable look on his face. There's still this gentleness of sleep on him. Like everything is possible.

His big hand rests between their heads, its bigger than Stiles' in that his palms are larger, fingers thicker, made for supporting and building gigantic wooden houses from scratch. Solid enough to take the weight of a Pack and make a home out of that house.

It took him years to grow into his hands, he was fragile and made mistakes and was generally an asshole to his Betas for a long while, but now he's a good Alpha. It makes Stiles smile again, a little, before he has to swallow the lump in his throat at the thought of these hands needing to hold him back from killing a man, the thought of his own hands damaged by his own violence. They still ache, and he thinks he deserves that pain.

Derek doesn't let Stiles spiral back into this guilt and shame, raises his hand to run the back of his hand down the human's cheek, a barely there touch holding so much affection that Stiles shudders and leans into it.

 

Derek moves until the cover that fell between them is over their two bodies pressed together. He tucks Stiles' head under his chin and runs a hand through the teen's hair until he feels him calm down.

It's not going to be an easy battle to win, this is not something any of them is really used to openly fight. In the last year, the Pack grew up enough that they can admit they're not always alright, but they're not yet at the point where they dare asking for help. It's a good thing the wolves are able to sense when someone is upset, react in ways of physical contact and small gestures. None of them learned how to talk about it though, not even Stiles with all his words.

They must fall back asleep at some point because Derek opens his eyes again and the light is brighter in the room, his hold on Stiles is looser and he can see they both relaxed.

Stiles' mouth hangs open a little, letting soft sighs escape, and Derek thinks nothing can compare to the beauty of this: Stiles asleep between his arms, pliant and warm.

Or, maybe one thing would be better: golden irises looking back at him as they did a few hours before. Like Derek was the most beautiful thing in the world, in the same way Stiles is in the wolf's eyes.

He traces paths between the moles on the human's cheek with in his mind, down his throat, thinks that they could be constellations.

He stays like this for so long that he makes a mental map of the ones he can see, here's the Spark -he didn't need to think long to find a fitting name- and there's one that looks like Corvus.

He sighs deeply, tries not to think of all the stars on Stiles' body that he wants to discover, like the astronomers of old times, awake all night in desert lands or on quiet seas, finding the bright points that will take them home.

Derek feels like he could get lost in this world. Just looking at Stiles and imagining a future where they're a unit, a double star system. It gives him so much hope he feels like he's about to explode, he can't really deal with that much emotion at once.

But then Stiles opens his eyes, eyelids fluttering and pupils adjusting to the light and focusing on him, and the smile on his lips at what he wakes up to makes Derek's heart slow, the storm inside of him quiet down.

He wonders what he did to deserve this. No words have been exchanged since last night, but he _knows_ that he's not the only one feeling this, knows that Stiles wants this too, closing the distance between them until there's no emptiness. He knows it the way we know sunlight feels warm on our skin. 

 

They're in pieces, the both of them, satellites parts drifting around a bigger object by some mysterious law of the universe called gravity. But they're held whole in the other's gaze. An entire universe in each of their souls, and in this space they feel safe. They thought they would never find someone that could help them pick up their own broken fragments to be glued back together. And then they saw each other.

 

Derek quietly goes up the stairs, turns off all the lights in the house. Every time he touches the switches, he smiles. He remembers Erica and Isaac wanting to try and install one themselves, Erica triumphant grin when she succeeded and Isaac did not, even if hers was askew.

He has a story for every room, every piece of furniture, every holes that shouldn't be there. The last stair creaks, so he avoids it and pads to the room at the end of the corridor. The door is open, the window too, letting in fresh spring air.

Derek approaches the armchair next to the telescope. His smile is small but his heart is so full of love that he could cry. He takes the cover on the small bed and puts it on the two sleeping forms. When he straightens, he looks around at the room. The walls are covered in pictures of rockets and there's planets hanging from the ceiling in no particular order.

He hears a heartbeat rising a fraction, enough to make him turn back and see the moonlight reflect in Stiles' eyes. They stay like that for a minute, before Derek takes off his clothes and turns into a wolf. It's still as overwhelming as the first time, but it feels so right. He jumps on the big footstool and curls up on it, close enough to feel the warmth emanating from the child still asleep in Stiles' arms.

The kid must sense his presence, because he moves until his head is on Stiles' knees and his little hand finds its way into Derek's black fur without waking up once. The two men fall asleep like that, it's not unusual for the three of them. In the night, they are their own constellation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written and corrected while half dead, again...  
> Tell me what you think, even if it's just saying you liked it by giving a kudo :3


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